Be Dammed is a research-based project by artist Carolina Caycedo that explores concepts of flow and containment, investigating correlations between the mechanisms of social control and the unethical aspects of public works infrastructural projects including large water dams and reservoirs. Be Dammed encompasses sculpture, photography, video and a performance series, and reflects the artist’s ongoing query into the development of mega-infrastructures over natural and social landscapes. Within this body of work, Caycedo conceptually embeds an analogous relationship of tactical constraint and crowd control, as exercised by police and military over group protests and public demonstrations.

Artworks in Be Dammed examine the interconnected spheres of legal, physical, and psychological social control. As part of her research for the two channel video Spaniards named it Magdalena, but natives call her Yuma, for example, Caycedo conducted interviews with a range of individuals affected by and involved with the development of El Quimbo (a hydroelectric dam currently under construction along the Magdalena River in Colombia) including an activist, an environmentalist, an oppositional leader, a professor, a shaman, a local fisherwoman, and the dam’s engineer, to develop an understanding of this complex triad. Manifesting these relationships in performative-based works, Caycedo continues her collaboration with contemporary dancer Rebeca Hernandez exploring the choreography of power, as exemplified by crowd control techniques, restrictive paramilitary holds, and barrier systems designed to contain civil disobedience. On-site and off-site performances will take place throughout the project. Other discrete artworks such as the sculpture Manopla Triple Arco/Three Arched Knuckle draw parallels between the architecture of dams and the structural forms used for physical domination.

'Ni Chana ni Juana' is an expression used in Mexico to speak about a condition or situation defined by a lack of resolution: not one or the other, neither here nor there. The exhibition Ni Chana Ti-Juana, opening on November 16 at 18th Street Arts Center, takes this platitude as a conceptual point of departure. Ni Chana Ti-Juana will present work produced during the first-year project in the Otis Graduate Public Practice Program after three trips to Camino Verde, a community in Tijuana, Baja California.

The research projects have been facilitated by Bill Kelley Jr. and Cog•nate Collective, with the assistance of Polen Audiovisual and in collaboration with Centro Comunitario Camino Verde, Casa de las Ideas, and community organizers Don Polo, Alma López, and Tico Orozco.

An opening reception for Ni Chana Ti-Juana will be held on November 16 from 6-9pm. The exhibition will be open through December, culminating in a conversation at the Otis Graduate Public Practice studios on December 7 at 12pm.

When & Where

18th Street Arts Center
1639 18th St Santa Monica,
CA 90404

Saturday, November 16, 2013 from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM (PST)

Organizer

18th Street Arts Center

18th Street Arts Center is an artists’ residency program that provokes public dialogue through contemporary art-making. We value art-making as an essential part of a vibrant, just and healthy society. Through our artist residencies we are a contemporary art hub that fosters inter-cultural collaboration and dialogue. 18th Street’s residencies, exhibitions, public events, talks, and publications encourage, showcase and support the creation of cutting-edge contemporary art and foster collaboration and interaction between artists locally, nationally and internationally.